Kids Antiracist Book Club: Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell PArker Rhodes

Looking for a book to add to your middle school curriculum that will spark meaningful conversation about racism, especially in schools and sports? Black Brother, Black Brother, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, could be it. Read it with… Jerry Craft’s New Kid to compare microagressions and overt racism, and open readers’ eyes to look more critically […]

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Creating a Book Soundtrack with Middle Schoolers

7th and 8th grade digital book club is 2/3 of the way through The Honest Truth, a novel by Dan Gemeinhart. Last week, I wrote about one of the ways that we’re exploring identity and privilege through the novel (you can read about that here). This week, we’re taking a new angle to make a […]

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Faculty and Staff (Digital) Book Club: New Kid, by Jerry Craft

I did not expect to be hosting our New Kid Faculty and Staff Book Club from my dining room, in my slippers. If I’m being honest, once our school closed, I wasn’t expecting to host this book club at all. While we were all thrilled when more than 50 members of our faculty and staff […]

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Digital Book Club: The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

Looking for a great story to share? As part of my distance learning plan with my elementary school readers, I’m sharing one of my favorite stories from when I was a kid, one chapter at a time! It’s bittersweet to be sharing this story – I’ve always wanted to do this readaloud with a class, […]

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My Favorite Moments of 2019

Earlier this week, I shared the most popular posts of 2019, according to statistics, on Fitz Between the Shelves. And while it’s fascinating to see what readers enjoy the most, it’s also surprising to see what makes it to the top of the list; because they’re rarely the moments that I loved the most! So […]

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Best of 2019: Blog Posts

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday. I’m excited to share our top posts of 2019 – they’re always so different than I expect. Some of these were favorites last year, too, and some are brand new. I know that I loved writing them – I hope that enjoyed reading them […]

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Family Book Club: Love Sugar Magic

This week, 4th and 5th grade readers and their families gathered in the library to celebrate and discuss Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble by Anna Meriano. This sweet and spicy story is all about family, tradition, and the way baking and sharing food is a way of showing the people you love just […]

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Global Read Aloud Postcard Exchange

It’s Global Read Aloud season! The annual literary tradition kicked off at the end of September, and our students are so excited to be reading and connecting with readers all over the world through amazing common literature. We are extra excited this year to be the school from the state of Virginia participating in the […]

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Coming Soon: Family Book Club, Love Sugar Magic

It’s Fall Family Book Club time, and we’re adding a pinch of magic to our Book Club recipe! Students and their families are invited to read Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble, by Anna Mariano. Family Book Club is designed for students and their parents/families to share the story together at home. After completing the novel, all […]

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